1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to building systems, methods and wall panels, and more particularly relates to building systems, methods and wall panels for making confinement cells.
2. Description of the Related Art
Confinement cells, namely prison and jail cells, require special considerations that are not generally considered for conventional commercial building systems, methods and wall panels. Specifically, the building systems, methods and wall panels should be constructed to (a) resist destruction from inmates, (b) resist conversion to weapons such as metal knives, and (c) minimize recesses for hiding materials such as razor blades and other contraband. Additionally useful building panels should be light weight, rigid and easily stackable, and building systems and methods should be simple and cost efficient.
Prior methods for constructing prison and jail cells include conventional cast-in-place concrete cell walls, cast-in-place concrete cell walls using tunnel forms, precast concrete panel cell walls, complete precast concrete uni-cast cells, reinforced concrete masonry units (CMU) cell walls, and steel cell units, each of which has various disadvantages. Specifically, conventionally cast-in-place concrete cell walls typically use forming materials such as wood or heavy steel panels, or a combination thereof, both of which, regardless of the supporting framing and bracing systems, are relatively heavy and very labor intensive. Additionally, conventionally cast-in-place concrete cell walls typically require many man-hours for both installation and stripping and for customizing to accommodate the required items that must be interfaced, such as sleeves and devices for mechanical systems, electrical systems and weld plates for jail furnishings, and additionally, the installation of the security windows and door frames (which must be very precise in plumbness and squareness), requires many additional man-hours. Additionally, such cast-in-place systems typically leave "form marks" on the surface and at the panel joints that usually require much additional work, such as scraping, patching and rubbing, to make them acceptable in appearance and function.
Cast-in-place concrete cell walls using tunnel forms generally suffer the major disadvantage of high initial investment cost, and often cost in modification thereof, in the form itself, which generally must be purchased or leased by the contractor. An additional disadvantage of tunnel forms, typically includes the need to utilize a large crane in order to handle the huge, heavy forms. Additionally only three wall units can be cast with this tunnel form and the remaining wall, either the one with the windows or the one containing the security doors, must be constructed using some other method.
Precast concrete panel cell walls utilize flat precast concrete panels, usually cast in a plant, generally suffer the disadvantage of transport costs, heavy lifting equipment for erection, the relatively large number of precast pieces required for each unit, and the work required to satisfactorily seal the resulting joints where the pieces come together.
Complete precast concrete uni-cast cells employs complete cell units that are precast in a plant, and generally suffer from the disadvantage of including very high cost of transportation, and the high expense of the initial casting forms for creating such units, and again require heavy and expensive equipment for loading, hauling the oversized loads and setting them in a place.
The reinforced concrete masonry units (CMU) cell walls involve a method where the cell walls are laid up with conventional concrete masonry units, and vertical reinforcing steel rods are placed in the cells of the blocks at some designated centers and the blocks are then filled full of concrete grout. The disadvantages of such CMU cell walls include that the walls have generally slightly less structural value than concrete walls, they may lack in various security aspects, are very labor intensive in construction, generally requires skilled labor, and the small size of the jail cells makes the scaffolding and materials handling difficult and costly. Additionally, the number of cut (individually sawed) pieces required to accommodate devices and openings is also a major cost disadvantage, and additionally there are sometimes problems associated with the maintaining of the required close tolerance for the cell door frames.
Steel cell units are generally manufactured in a plant, generally suffer from the disadvantage of high cost, as well as various limitations with regard to utilization as an integral part of structural systems for large buildings.
Accordingly, there is a need and desire to provide building systems, methods and panels which resist conversion to weapons, resist destruction from inmates, minimize orifices for hiding materials, are light weight, rigid and easily stackable for transport, and are easy to assemble and cost efficient.